The Last Time
by Pelahnar
Summary: River Song has been in the Doctor's life for hundreds of years, but eventually it will have to come to an end. Everything does eventually. The problem that the Doctor has is that, with River, how will he ever know if it's the last time?


**Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who.**

**A/N: This takes place at an unknown point in the 11th Doctor's future - neither Clara nor any other future companion is involved, but whomever he's with at this point is probably just sleeping. It contains spoilers through the end of Series 6 and there are, I believe, two references to Angels Take Manhattan. One is so vague that it can hardly be called a reference and the other is blink-and-you-miss it. Even if you don't miss it, if you haven't seen the episode it will just be a "Huh? When did that happen?" moment. There are certainly no spoilers from that episode.**

Since Martha Jones had quit traveling with the Doctor, she'd only seen him a handful of times and since she'd married Mickey, he'd only come once. The number of the old mobile she'd once given him didn't even work anymore. It wouldn't surprise her if he'd lost it or something. She was beginning to think they'd never see him ever again when, nearly six years after his last appearance, the Doctor showed up on her doorstep with the TARDIS parked in the front garden.

"You've regenerated." Martha couldn't keep herself from saying the words, even though it was blatantly stating the obvious. He just nodded, not speaking. Examining him critically, Martha shifted uneasily. His posture, his expression, the way he was wringing his hands – all spoke of extreme anxiety. Even fear. "Doctor? What's wrong?"

"I - " he began, but cut himself off by clearing his throat. "Martha, I need to ask you to do something for me. It's risky. I have no idea how dangerous it could be. Maybe not at all, maybe a lot."

She was about to agree to whatever it was without question – of course she'd do it, he had to know she'd do anything he asked her to – but the reluctance in his voice made her pause. "Well, what is it?"

"I need you to read a book."

Coming from anyone else, this would sound ridiculous. How could reading a book be dangerous? But knowing the Doctor as she did, Martha understood that there could definitely be ways and he wasn't joking about this. Nodding slowly, she decided not to ask any more questions as an explanation was probably forthcoming. Instead, she noted that they were still standing in the doorway and quickly invited him inside.

They got settled on her living room couch and after a long moment, the Doctor pulled a book out of his jacket and laid it on the coffee table in front of them. He sat back and let Martha study the book in silence for a few minutes. It was a dark blue – TARDIS blue, even – and the cover's pattern seemed to be based on the Police Box's panels. There was no title that she could see, but it was obviously quite old and broken along the binding, so it was possible that the title had come off over time. A few pages were on the verge of falling out.

"Well?" The Doctor asked quietly and she glanced up, surprised. That was what she had been about to say, wanting more information about this possibly dangerous book.

She paused. It was _possible_ the title had come off over time, but there were absolutely no traces of it whatsoever. She was guessing there never had been one."Well...is it...a diary?" Martha asked hesitantly.

"Yes."

"Whose?" she prompted.

"Her name is River Song. Mean anything to you?" She shook her head at the unfamiliar name. "Good. River Song is my wife." Martha started a little at this simply statement, but he didn't seem to notice. The Doctor had once told her that he could never have anything like a normal relationship with a woman; then again, the relationship that he was going on to describe didn't sounded anything like a normal one. "She's a time traveler too, and we don't get to meet in the right order.

"The day I met her, I watched her die. Later – much later – I held her in my arms when she was an infant. I've seen her at birth and I've seen her at death. Everything in between, for her, is a jumble for me." To her shock, there were tears forming in his eyes, and they fell as he asked the next question. "How am I supposed to know when I'll never see her again? One day, she'll leave and never come back. And I won't know. I'll just keep waiting for her to appear again, or to get a message on the psychic paper, or to find "Hello, sweetie" on some historical landmark. But I never will and I won't know."

Martha patted his shoulder sympathetically. "I'm really, really sorry Doctor," she murmured. "But I'm not sure what you want me to do. Read her diary?" She wondered vaguely why he even _had _her diary.

"This diary is not just a diary." He picked it up and placed it in her lap, clasping both the book and her hands tightly. "It's River Song's chronicles of all her adventures with me. We kept them so we'd know where were in relation to each other's time streams. And this one is complete. It's the diary she had on the day she died, so every time she and I have ever met is written down in this book. Obviously _I _can't read it. It's a book about my life, including any future I may still have with her."

Martha was starting to understand. "And it's dangerous even for me, because what if I'm involved in one of the future parts?"

He nodded. "On the day I met her, she mentioned the last time she'd seen me. The Singing Towers of Darillium. When we went there, I asked her if she knew who you were and she said no. She could've been lying, though, she does that. Trying to protect me from spoilers about my future."

"Okay," Martha said, nodding slowly. "I think it's worth the risk."

"Are you sure?" he asked seriously.

She hesitated before answering with a question of her own. "Do you remember how _we_ met? It was a hospital that was taken to the moon?" After waiting for confirmation that he _did_ remember, she went on. "We didn't know that there was a force field keeping the air in, but when I still wanted to go outside, you didn't try to stop me." She smiled. "Actually if I remember right, you approved."

"That's different."

"How? The force field could've been around only the doors and windows. We could've died by going out on that balcony. I don't think I can die from reading my name in a book."

The Doctor seemed unconvinced. "What if you _don't_ read your name? What if what you read is something that will happen to you, but your name isn't mentioned until after? Or not at all, and then you won't know until it happens and you have to do something just because you read it in some book?"

Martha tapped the cover of the book thoughtfully. He seemed to be wanting to do this as safely as possible – unusual, for him, but since it was so important to him, she'd figure something out. "When did she start this diary? Not as an infant, I assume."

"No. I gave it to her when she actually met me. When I was properly introduced to her, I mean."

"So, the first entry will be about that then? You were definitely there and I definitely wasn't. We're at least safe reading that one."

"Yes, but the first entry won't help!" The Doctor cried miserably, but there was a smile spreading across Martha's lips.

"Perhaps you weren't aware, but I'm also a time traveler who kept a diary. Life with you, I'd be surprised if you've had any companions who didn't. Now, I don't know about River Song, but I carefully noted the date and location every time – what would be the point, otherwise? If River did too, then that's all we need. I'll read out the different places and you can tell if you've been there with her. And I can see if she did by looking at the first entry, which we're sure is safe."

Upon opening the diary, however, she found that it wasn't quite that simple. "Coordinates. She wrote the date and location in galactic coordinates."

"_Inter_-galactic coordinates, I hope," the Doctor corrected her, bounding to his feet with unexpected energy. He dashed around the room, finding a pen and paper and knocking several things over on the way. He winced as something broke. "Sorry about that. Inter-galactic coordinates, because we haven't always stayed in this galaxy. Here, write them down."

"You seem a lot happier," Martha said suspiciously, shooting him a glance as she began to copy the string of numbers and symbols onto the piece of paper he'd found.

"Of course," was the brisk reply. "You don't read inter-galactic coordinates. Even if you _are_ involved in something, as long as you look at only the coordinates, it won't matter." Martha finished writing as he explained and he snatched up the paper as soon as she was done. "That's, let's see... Earth... Germany... 1938. Our first date, among other things."

"Other things?" Martha had to ask.

"Oh, we got engaged, she poisoned me, she cured me. Her mother was duplicated by a robot run by miniaturized people, her father punched Hitler," The Doctor answered in one breath. "Not in that order, that was the completely wrong order."

Trying to hold in a smile, she said, "You know, there are times when I _really_ miss traveling with you. You should tell me that whole story some time." She took back the sheet of paper and made to turn to the next page of the diary, but he suddenly grabbed her wrist.

"_Don't_ look at any words. Not one."

"Doctor, it will be all right," she told him reassuringly, though he seemed to be getting nervous again.

The Doctor started to pace around the room as she carefully copied down the coordinates that began the next entry. Halfway through the second one, however, she stopped. "You don't need to know the exact locations."

"What?"

Martha sighed and explained. "If I write down all these coordinates and then you read through them, you'll know the times and places when you'll see her again. That's not good, is it?"

"No, I know, and I shouldn't, but - "

"You don't have to," Martha interrupted. "I won't write down the numbers. I'll just count how many entries there are and you can compare the total to how many times you've seen her. Then you'll know how many more there'll be."

After a few seconds during which he stared at her blankly, he nodded. "Yes. Yes, that works, do that."

It took Martha a matter of minutes to skim through the book and count the entries. "There's still room for error, of course," she told him after giving the final number. "Maybe she didn't write something down or had two journal entries for something you considered as one time, but..."

"It's close, yeah," the Doctor agreed. "It's more than I had before. Thank you, Martha."

* * *

The Doctor left the Smiths' house feeling nearly as depressed as he'd been coming. The number that Martha had given him and the number he already had had matched. If the count was accurate and he felt certain that it was, then he had had every single adventure that River had written about by the end of her life. Their time together was over. She'd said goodbye to him for his last time and there had been absolutely nothing special about the occasion.

"No," the Doctor said aloud to the empty TARDIS control room. "It was _not_ the last time. I will not _let_ that be the last time." He flicked a few switches violently and the ship took off suddenly, sending him sprawling.

Since River had been released from prison, she had taken up residence near the Luna University where she worked. He appeared at her home both late in the evening and late in her time stream – but before Darillium, of course. For once, they'd have very nearly all the same memories.

"Hello, River."

She hadn't reacted when the TARDIS had materialized in her room, but only looked up when he spoke. Smiling, she said, "Hello, sweetie. This is a surprise." She reached for the diary, which looked nearly as battered as the version Martha had just gone through. "Where are we now?"

"Actually - " He stopped, then forced himself to finish. There was no turning back now that he was here, anyway. "Actually, we're going to break the rules tonight."

River's smile froze. "What?"

"You can't write about this meeting in the diary. I know what I said," he responded quickly to her attempted protestation. "But River, this is important. You can't write about tonight. Because I – I don't think I'm ever going to see you again."

Her eyebrows creased with concern as she stood and slowly crossed the room. She lightly laid a hand on his cheek and stared into his eyes, much as she'd done on the day he'd met her. Except this time he accepted the touch gladly. After a moment, she nodded. "I think you're right. You're older than I've ever seen you. Oh, I'm so sorry, my love," she whispered, pulling him into a hug. "But – how did you know?"

"Spoilers," he answered as she stepped back again. "Well, not exactly, but explaining would include spoilers." She nodded, looking resigned. "The thing is River, I know you now and you know me. There aren't very many spoilers left to us and now they're all spoilers for you. Our life together – for the most part, it's behind us right now, both of us. We could actually talk about it."

River gave him a small smirk. "Your last night with me...and you want to _talk_?"

"Well...we don't have to talk _all_ night, do we?"

She smiled and leaned forward to kiss him more passionately than she'd ever done before.

**A/N: It bothers me a bit that the Doctor has seen both the beginning and end of River's timeline. She could conceivably keep showing up for the rest of his life. There are, however, definitely a finite number of times she can appear, because she has a finite life. But how will they ever be able to write a good last episode for her when we've already seen her death?**

**Please review!**


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